Cincinnati Reds legend and Hall of Famer Johnny Bench is the first Topps Prime 9 player as announced Tuesday.

Each week, Topps will announce which players can be redeemed for Prime 9 cards found in packs of 2011 Topps Series 2.

Collectors can bring their Week 1 redemption cards to their participating hobby shops to turn them in for a card and be entered for a chance to win a trip to the World Series as long as they fill out the form on the back.

Each card is a Refractor and the cards can be found two per hobby (or jumbo) box.

Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball magazine. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.

3 Comments

Randall Roberson

topps shipped out all prime 9 cards to dealers last week. They killed the suspense for collectors because dealers are already selling the cards on ebay. My LCS gave me all of my cards already. I just have to give him the redemption card so I can be entered for the grand prize. My LCS said they gave him 100 sets, not the 25 that Topps originally promoted back in the winter. They are nice looking cards but I would Have liked to wait each week to see who the new player would be. Thanks topps.

From mod: That’s always been the problem with card shop promotions… dealers just sell them.

Problem out here in my area is all the card shops say they didnt get their cards…so I am stuck with 1 and 1/2 sets of redemption cards,,,and I really want the cards…I called Topps 2 weeks ago and they said they were supposedly sending them out late to dealers…